Big Indie Pitch Shanghai names Grave Seasons, Reap and Rush and Rhythm Hotel among its winners

Pocket Gamer Connects Summit Shanghai has revealed the winners of its latest Big Indie Pitch, with this year's event using several category prizes rather than a simple first, second and third place. Grave Seasons from Solo Game won both Excellence in Gameplay and the Grand Prix. Its premise combines farming and small-town life with a supernatural murder mystery in which the player has a year to discover who is killing residents.

Reap and Rush from Mecrew Games received Excellence in Art and Design as well as an Honourable Mention. The fast action roguelike draws inspiration from Chinese mythology and casts players as a reaper battling through the underworld. Rhythm Hotel from SyncArc Studio won Excellence in Audio with a humorous rhythm structure built around unusual characters and timing-based encounters.

The Big Indie Pitch format gives smaller studios only a short period to present their projects to rotating industry experts, making the competition as much about communicating an idea clearly as building the game itself. The Shanghai winners show how broad mobile and cross-platform indie development has become, spanning farming mysteries, roguelikes and comedy rhythm games.